More of Colmar

I wander around the old town until 7, when the shops close up for the day. They're just beginning the summer sale season, so it's worth looking into some. But they're the same old shops as anywhere, with an extra layer of high-end boutiques laid on for the wine-country tourists. We've got the same in Clermont - why shop here and schlepp it all home? It's sad they're all the same chains. Except for the Alsatian souvenir place of course. (Even there, it's a disappointment to see that this one artist who's made such incisive jokes about Auvergne has an Alsatian version that is pretty much the same, just a word changed here & there.)

A bath, a bit of tv, and dinner. I end up on a side street at the edge of the pedestrian district, in a little family-run place. 6 tables on the sidewalk; maybe twice as many inside. Everybody eats outside if the weather allows.

The boss knows his wines and I don't, so I let him recommend. By the glass, and I have two. A sweet aperitif, an Edelzwicker or a Gewurtz; followed by a drier Pinot Gris for my summery plate of fruit and chilled delicacies. Most of the local specialties are hearty winter food, so it's a rather generic plate, but nice.

Four of the tables are eventually occupied, thankfully none by smokers. Sometimes I have a dining room all to myself as a refuge from all the tables around me lighting up. Next to me are a pair of germans who have some difficulty communicating with the boss.  The boss's German sounds fine at first, but is more or less limited to the food words of the manu. He does not understand that the German drinking wine finds his libation too warm.

But this is sorted out. And the evening is enjoyed by all.

In the morning I discover I have failed to bring socks.

??

Can't do serious walking without socks!

Instead of an early start for Herrlisheim and the vineyards and the ruins, I guess I'll take a photographic tour around the old town before the tourists fill it up. Until the shops open.

Or not so late a start, really; the Monoprix is already open at 8:30, and they do have socks. Off we go. Once I drop off my breakfast reading and refill my water bottle at the hotel and get to the station, the 9:04 to Mulhouse is at the quay, and I don't have a ticket. The time it takes to get one is just 30 seconds too long. 59 minutes 30 seconds to wait for the next one. If I were really a daring adventurer, I'd have hopped the train ticketless.

Might as well have a look around. Lots of busses stop here, as one might well imagine. Hey! One to Turckheim at 9:11. Tomorrow. I'll take that one tomorrow if I can't find that trailhead. It's a curious schedule - 8:30, 9:11 and 12:05, but then one every half hour later in the afternoon.

Strolling around I see one of the statues of Bartholdi, the sculptor of the Statue of Liberty. THere's a replice statue in town, but apparently pretty far away on the north side, best got to by car. Just here there's little statuary, but blocks and blocks of Belle Epoque houses, luxurious gardens all around them, and delicate but firm fences. You can tell this used to be Germany, though, because all the blocks are square. No silly French streets laid any which way around here! 

On to Herrlisheim!

To Colmar

The middle-aged woman next to me on the train is wearing a skirt that reaches to mid-thigh. Just a centimeter or two beyond a mini.

It's not the display of her legs that's so ridiculous - no prettier or less than mine, the same uneven complexion and cellulite. Bravo for courage in the face of new-found veins. It's that she keeps pulling it down, betrayed by the fact that sitting in a short skirt is much less flattering than standing up in one.

Every few minutes, an adjustment. With no visible difference in the extent of pale flesh exposed.

Ladies, please: if the skirt is too short, wear a longer one.

I've got just four days for travelling this time. Italy is a bit far for that, because of some inconvenient train schedules, so I'll get there some other time. September, if I dare take time off then. On my way to Strasbourg a year or two ago I was intrigued by the pretty countryside around Colmar, so that's where I'm off to. My friend in Nancy, Joanna, meant to join me with her little boy, but he seems to have come down with something and they may or may not join me later. For once I might have company on one of these outings - we'll see!

8:56 depart for Lyon. 12:05 from there for Mulhouse. 20 minutes wait there for the small local train to Colmar. Mulhouse around the station doesn't tempt me, in spite of the waterfront with its docked boats. the local pauses at:

Mulhouse Dornac: boring suburb

Staffelden: corn on one side, big houses with big yards on the other. No good hiking there.

Bollwiller: cute town with its hexagonal onion-domed church. The station parking lot is big enough to hold the cars of the entire town.

Raedersheim: major corn.

Merexheim: corn, wheat, corn.

-a crane in a mowed hayfield-

-wheat-

Roufflach: grain silos, half-timbered pub.

Herrlisheim-près-Colmar: there are castle ruins on the crest of the row of hills, and finally vineyards everywhere. Yea! Here I could just get off the train for a stroll through the green, though the ruins are some miles away.
All that in just 37 minutes. I'll pick up the schedule to get back to Herrlisheim - small towns are great for hiking. In a biggish town like Colmar it's sometimes hard to find the trailheads, and in a city like Mulhouse you can hardly find the trailheads at all because they're all way out in the burbs. It's only 4;30. My plan is to drop my stuff at the hotel and go for a walk, picking up a guide to peruse over dinner.
Time to go see Colmar.

It's one of those French jewels, with a large central pedestrian district where the streets are cobbled and the old-fashioned signs hang out from the shops, showing as much as telling what's there. Spotlessly clean. Old half-timbered buildings restored and painted.

The churches and other major structures have tha wonderful roofing done in patterns of colored tile. The warm yellow and red sandstone is gorgeous in the evening light.

And storks - there really are storks nesting here and there about town on the metal platforms provided for them.

I look into several bookshops and newsagents, but although tour books for the region abound, they all expect you to have a car. Except one - there is a guide for cyclists. Alas, this is (oddly) not a walking sort of place, unlike my adopted Auvergne, where dozens of hiking trail guides vy for your attention. I do eventually find two fold-out maps of the region that have red trails marked on them. One of these could do, though it would be better to have the common sort of book that describes the landmarks and has a detailed map of just the part you want.
There are only two red lines leaving Colmar anyway. One follows the river, and if I just go down there I'll find the trail. Trails are always well marked in France - once you find the trailhead you can't miss it. The other goes up toward the interesting, vineyard-covered hills, departing from a mall at the west edge of town that a bus is sure to go to, so I pass on the map.

more tomorrow...

in the yard

 Cherry season is officially over, but the vegetable patch is finally getting going now that it's a bit warmer. 

 This is one of last year's leeks that I never harvested. Two of them waited out the winter and are now flowering.

 Some squash on its way. I forget if this is the sort-of-pumpkin or the zucchini.

Strawberries! The plants are still very small, as I neglected to fertilize with compost before planting this year. Just wanted to get to having plants in the ground, but that's a step I'll not skip next time. I've been eating the berries one or two at a time, as they've been ripening. Got to be quick to beat the slugs!

Adieu, Spiny Griselda

I've been keeping an eye out for the hedgehogs in the evenings. It's been more than a week since I've seen one nosing around the edge of the lawn, or amongst the lupins. Perhaps they were just passing through on some spiny transcontinental adventure.

Yesterday I was out taming the front yard a bit (always only a bit; it would take serious work to really get it into shape, and the back yard where I can eat the fruits of my labor is so much more interesting to mess with), and I noticed a smell. It was the smell of the dead shrew left by the waste bins, only much bigger. So I looked around in the weeds for some other body, and there it was.
One of the hedgehogs! Quite dead.
They are much less cute all deflated.
I wondered what might have done it in. The cats do leave them alone. And then I remembered: a few days before noticing the first one, I saw my rose buds were utterly covered in aphids.
There are only two chemical products I use in the yard - some Roundup for the weeds that sprout in the cracks in concrete & can't be pulled, and anti-aphid stuff that I use quite sporadically. And I had sprayed the roses in the front yard, sprayed them good, just days before the hedgehogs made themselves known. I just may have done in my little insectivore buddies.
I feel awful about that. I hope the others got away.

Spiny invasion

Once it stopped raining on Sunday I went out to harvest some cherries before they all rot. Such delicate fruit - they go from not ripe to rotten in just a day when it's wet out. I got pretty soaked from shaking the water off the leaves higher up, but such is the sacrifice for cherries. My next free evening is Wednesday, and anything left by then will certainly be moldy. 

At one point, I moved the ladder and provoked the shrieking of the hedgehog who was hanging out in the tall weeds along the fence. Another one!

Or maybe one I'd seen before. It's hard to tell them apart. The only way I know there are at least three of the little guys is because I saw three at once the other day. Perhaps there are thirty.

Well maybe just three. They get around. This one quit the cherry tree proximity and proceded to waddle along the edge of the mowed area to end up by the grape. Just waddled along, bold as you please. Not hiding in the weeds or anything. Took about ten minutes, so one could cover the whole yard in a day if it wanted the exercise.

Bandersnatch was out keeping me company, and Natalie came by once or twice, but neither cat paid any attention at all to the hedgehog. They must have a deal set.

Now when I look around the yard I'm likely to notice the small, grey-white, potato-shaped things nosing around in the flowers and the weeds. They're everywhere. They're taking over.